Hairy Nightmares
by Self-Inflicted Insanity
Summary: Clint had a traumatizing nightmare about bad hairstyles. He tells Steve about it.


**AN: **The_ word "hairy" can mean 'covered with hair; having much hair; consisting of hair," but it can also mean "causing anxiety or fright." _

_**Or, in this case, it can mean both simultaneously.** _

**This story is kind of a sequel to my story "Just Another Night," but you don't need to read that one to enjoy this one. Basically, in that story, Clint just briefly casually mentions that he had a nightmare about bad hairstyles, and then after I posted that story I was thinking about what might have happened in Clint's nightmare... and then this happened XD  
**

**I don't own the characters. This is just for laughs :) **

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_**Hairy Nightmares**_

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Sometimes you just need to get a nightmare off your chest. And how better to do that then to talk to someone about it? And who better to talk to then Steve Rogers himself? No, Steve wasn't a therapist or anthing, but he was _Captain America._ That had to count for something, right? Also, he could make a mean omelet.

Clint found Steve in the kitchen, crouching down and checking the contents of the refrigerator for foodstuffs suitable for breakfast.

"Hey Winghead," Clint greeted, swaggering over and leaning against the counter.

Steve didn't even have to glance over. "Hi Clint."

"What was your nightmare about last night?" Clint asked conversationally.

"Nothing I haven't seen countless times before," Steve answered as he moved some of the contents of the fridge so that he could check the back.

"World War II again, huh? I bet ya mine was worse."

"Oh?" Steve stood up and closed the refrigerator door, turning and crossing his arms, raising a blond eyebrow at the archer. "How much are you willing to bet?"

Clint grinned wryly. "The duty of making breakfast."

Steve snorted. "Alright, I'll bite," he said, walking over and sitting down at the kitchen table, setting his elbows on the surface. "What was your nightmare about?"

"Bad haircuts," Clint answered as he took a seat across from the Captain, expression completely, utterly earnest.

"Bad haircuts," Steve repeated monotonously.

"Yup," Clint nodded. Leaning forward, he started gesturing with his hands as he talked. "Okay, so what happened was, I came into Avengers headquarters, right? Or rather, I'd forgotten my key, so I had t'knock on the door, and then Pietro answered—yeah, I know he isn't an Avenger right now, but in my dream it was Pietro from when he, his sister and I first joined the Avengers—y'remember that? Wow, we were all so young and stupid! Buttin' heads all the futzin' time!"

"Yeah, I remember that," Steve said, lips quirking slightly at the memories.

"Anyway," Clint continued, "so Pietro answered the door, right? And immediately I knew that something was horribly, terribly, drastically wrong. Because y'know Pietro's hairstyle, how he's always got those two locks of longer hair on either side of his face that kinda stick up? They were gone. Pietro has _always _had those two longer locks of hair—they're like his signature look, y'know?—and they were _gone. _And y'_know _how much Pietro loves that hair of is."

Steve raised his eyebrows, waiting for the archer to get to the point. "So...?"

"So then I went into Avengers headquarters, and I was real wary and on edge, right? Because if Pietro was missing those two locks of hair, and he wasn't ranting and fuming about it, then something was real, _real _wrong." Clint had been watching his fingers tap on the table top, but now he lifted his gaze, meeting Steve's eyes, countenance intense and serious. "And sure 'nough, I get into the hang-out room, and I see Wanda. And y'know how she has those gorgeous brown curls, right? Only, her pretty hair had been ruined, and she had these long, matted dreadlocks. Wanda, with dreadlocks! And she was all calm and was just like, 'Hey Clint, you like my hair?'"

"And?" Steve prompted.

Clint threw his arms up, exclaiming, "And I was like, 'No, I don't like your hair! All ya need's a beard an' a pirate hat, and you'd look exactly like Jack Sparrow!'"

"I can't imagine that went over well," Steve remarked dryly, eyebrows twitching upwards as he gave the arrow-slinger a look, like: '_really?'_

"Yeah, and that was the strange thing!" Clint said, blue eyes wide as he leaned back in his chair and made a '_what-the-futz' _gesture. "She didn't hex me or anything! She just kinda laugh and shared this secretive smile with Pietro, like they do sometimes, y'know? It's some sorta creepy sibling-telepathic-thing or something, I swear. And then Nat comes in, right? An' y'know her vivid red hair? It was dyed neon blue, green, and purple! And her eyebrows and eyelashes were still red!" He clutched at his short blond tresses in distress. "_Natasha, _with neon _blue, green,_ and _purple_ hair!"

Steve blinked, wrinkling his brow slightly. "I'm finding that rather hard to imagine," he admitted.

"Man, it creeped me out! And _then _Thor walked in—and you know how his hair got dyed pink from using that shampoo that Billy put hair dye in and then Tommy stuck in one'a the showers? Well, Thor's hair was pink like that in my dream—only not only was it bright pink, it was also a mohawk. Thor, with a _pink mohawk!" _Clint made a vertical motion over his the center of his head with his hands, trying to demonstrate the mohawk. "And it was long and stuck up and _oh, the horror," _he moaned, letting his hands fall to cover his face as his head fell back so that he was staring through his fingers at the ceiling.

"Riiight," Steve drawled out, giving the archer a strange look.

"And—" Clint jerked his head back up to stare at Steve again, saying , "and _then _Danny came in, all dressed up in his Iron Fist get-up, with that piece'a cloth he wears over the top half'a his face—whatever it's called, I can't remember right now—and y'know how Danny is always clean-shaven? Well, in my nightmare he had a futzin' handlebar mustache! _Iron Fist had a handlebar mustache! _One of those ones that's perfectly sculpted and curls up on either side, y'know?!_" _

"Hey, calm down," Steve said, reaching across the table to put a hand on Clint's shoulder, since the arrow-slinger seemed to be working himself up into a sort of panic. "It can't have been _that _bad."

"But it _was!" _Clint said insistently, shrugging of the captain's hand as he continued, "And worse was to come! I was just standin' there thinkin': 'what the _futz _is going on?!' and then _Nick Fury _comes into the room, and," Clint took a breath, "he has a _futzin' Dumbledore beard! _A really long, huge one, that hung almost all the futzin' way to the futzin' floor!"

"..." Steve managed, before finally giving a, "I don't know what to say to that," when it appeared that the archer was waiting for a response.

That was apparently all the response Clint need, because then he started ranting again, saying, "And then _Sabretooth _of all people comes in—"

"Whata 'bout Sabretooth?" Wolverine growled as he stalked into the kitchen, lip pulling up in a snarl at the mention of his archenemy.

"He was in my dream!" Clint exclaimed, tossing his hands up in a _'what can I say?' _motion.

"Clint had a dream about bad hairstyles, apparently," Steve explained, when Logan sent them a dark, queer look.

Logan snarled gruffly before turning and starting up the coffee maker.

"Yeah," Clint continued, undeterred, facing Steve again, "and y'know how Sabertooth's all covered in that matted, coarse long hair, right? Well, in my nightmare, he looked like a futzin' Ovation Cell Therapy commercial! He practically had princess hair, it was so long an' glossy an' shiny! An' he was kinda purring, real proud of himself as he flipped his hair, and I'm telling you, it was _creepy, _man!"

"Sure sounds like it," Logan growled from where he was standing and watching the coffee trickle into his cup.

"And _then _it got _worse," _Clint said, leaning forward to place his elbows on the table, palms against his cheeks, "because then Peter Parker comes in, and he's not wearing his mask because he has this huge scraggly _beard—_"

"Yeah, the kid can't pull a beard off," Logan growled from where he was still watching his coffee like a cat watching a songbird, interrupting the archer again.

Clint whirled around in his chair to face the mutant. "Wait, how would you know?!" he demanded. "He's never actually _grown _a beard, has he?!"

"He did once," Logan shrugged. "We got stuck in the past for awhile, an' there aren't any razors in the time o' the dinosaurs."

Clint just stared at him for a moment, mouth slightly agape. "...Alright," he said, getting his voice back, "everybody from now on make sure that Peter _always carries a razor with him, at all times!" _

"I'm sure it wasn't _that_ bad—" Steve started.

"It was," Wolverine grunted, crossing his arms and just staring at his coffee, though the corner of his lips twitched slightly.

"It _was!" _Clint agreed vehemently, nodding. "And _then _The Protector walked in—you remember The Protector, right? Alien-cockroach boy from an alternative reality, super-genius that Tony was always trying to hire as an employee of Stark Industries, has that weird pure-white-hair thing goin' on? Anyways, yeah, him—he came in, and _he _had a beard, and he looked like Santa Claus—well, a really young, in-shape Santa Claus, but _still—"_

"He doesn't go by 'The Protector' anymore," Billy interrupted as he entered the kitchen, yawning and stretching his arms over his head, before adding, "his name is Noh-Varr. And how did you know about him growing a beard?"

Clint spluttered, blue eyes wide in horror. "Did alien-boy _actually _grow a beard?!"

"Yeah, he did," Billy said, pulling out a chair and sitting down at the table with the two adults, brushing strands of messy black hair out of his brown eyes. "He discovered a love of country music, and apparently that made it seem appropriate for him to grow a beard. He's kind of," Billy made a circular _'cuckoo' _motion around one ear, before shrugging. "He eventually shaved it off, though."

"Thank god!" Clint vociferated, slumping back in his chair and looking up at the ceiling, hand to his face. "Nobody let alien-boy grow a Santa beard again!"

Billy glanced at the arrow-slinger, then at the Captain, who was sitting there and watching Barton with a look that was somewhere between amused and bewildered, then at Wolverine, who was now leaning against the counter and nursing his mug of coffee, then back at the moaning Clint. "What's going on?" he asked confusedly.

"Clint had a nightmare where everybody had bad hairstyles," Steve explained.

"_Traumatizing _hairstyles!" Clint corrected, still covering his face with one hand as he gestured dramatically with the other. "I'm going to be mentally scarred from this dream for the rest of my life!" He sat back up and opened his eyes again, turning to look at Steve, saying, "Because then _you" _he gestured at the Captain, "came into the room, and..." Clint's eyes were wide, and he wet his lips, looking as if he hardly dared to speak, before saying finally, softly, seriously, "...and you had a _mullet."_

There was a moment of stunned silence.

And then:

"Steve with a mullet!" Billy crowed, falling against the back of his chair in a roaring fit of laughter, howling and gasping.

Logan started chuckling.

Steve just blinked, expressionless.

Clint's expression remained completely earnest. "And then _you"_ he gestured at Logan, "came into the room, along with Tony, and" the archer closed his eyes and shuddered, before opening them again, saying in subdued horror, "for one thing, the two of you had _switched facial hair. _Tony had those thick muttonchops of yours, and _you _had a Tony Stark mustache and beard—which I'm pretty sure's just called the Tony Stark mustache and Tony Stark beard—he's probably already copyrighted the names or somethin'—and on top of _that, _Tony's hair was grown out long and he had it held back in a ponytail that reached to his ass, and _you, _Logan," Clint pinned Wolverine with his gaze, "had a _bowl cut."_

Another moment of consternated silence, before Billy started guffawing anew, gasping out, "Oh man, Wolverine with a bowl cut! That is priceless!" and wiping at his watering eyes.

This time it was Steve's turn to chuckle, and Logan's turn to be utterly exasperated.

Then Clint threw himself out of his chair, falling on his knees and clasping his hands together as he looked up at Logan, imploring desperately, _"__Don't __ever get a bowl cut, Logan, I'm begging you!" _

"Ain't plannin' on it," Logan growled, giving Clint a harsh nudge with his foot to get the archer to stand up again. "'Sides, healing factor, remember?" With the hand that wasn't holding his mug of coffee, Logan gestured at his black hair, which was swept back, forming to points at the back of his head. "My hair doesn't _do _anythin' else. It always reverts back."

Clint gave a huge sigh of relief, before picking himself up and walking back over to his chair, slumping down in it.

He sent a half-hearted glare at Billy, who was still laughing, clutching his stomach, tears of mirth streaming from his eyes. Clint's expression just made the witch chortle even harder.

"And then, as if _that _was terribly scarring and traumatizing _enough," _Clint went on, crossing his arms over his chest,_ "_Magneto came in—I don't know why Magneto was there, but he was—and he was _bald."_

This made Billy stop laughing. At least, for a moment. Then he lapsed back into hysterics, unable to keep himself upright and falling out of his chair and onto the floor.

Steve and Logan exchanged glances.

They tactfully decided not to mention the fact that Magneto actually had recently shaved himself bald.

"So, by this time," Clint continued, unaware of the looks as he stared down at the table, carding fingers through his short blond hair. "I was real close to a panic attack, right? I mean, who _wouldn't_ be?! And then... then..."

"Then what?" Steve prompted, voice gentle.

Billy's raucous laughter had transmogrified into silent convulsions that were punctuated by harsh gasps.

"Then Jessica came in... and... her hair..." Clint's breath hitched. He couldn't meet their gazes. "All her gorgeous, luscious, long black hair, that all guys love and all girls are jealous of..." He shook his head, hiding his face in his hands. He couldn't speak for a few moments. "It was gone," he finally whispered, tragically. "Completely gone. She'd shaved herself bald as well."

"Spiderwoman was _bald?!" _Billy said, trying to push himself from a prostrate position onto his elbows. _"__Spiderwoman?" _Then he collapsed in giggles again.

Clint nearly broke down sobbing. After he took a few moments to compose himself, he finally lifted his face from his hands, looking at Steve soberly. "And... and then I was just staring in shock, right? An' I was paralyzed and couldn't move, and suddenly everybody descended upon me with scissors and hair products, and I jerked awake and had to bite my tongue to keep myself from screaming."

Silence.

Steve's cheeks were pulling upwards, the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly as he tried not to laugh.

"What?" Clint demanded, glancing between the Captain and the feral mutant who was taking a large gulp of coffee and not looking at him, and the teenager who was still lying on the floor and trembling with silent peals of giggles.

"Alright," Steve said at last, standing up from his chair and grinning full out, "you win. That nightmare sounds way more terrifying than mine was. I'll make breakfast. How does an omelet sound?"

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**AN: In the comics, Magneto actually is currently bald (though aside from that, this story kind of ignores current Marvel comics canon). And there was actually a story where Logan and Peter get sent into the timestream, and Peter ends up growing a beard. And in Young Avengers v.2, Noh-Varr does grow a beard, that looks kinda like a Santa beard because his hair's white. **

**Anyways, I hope you enjoyed, and I'd love to hear your thoughts! **


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